Westministenders: Its time to fire the starting gun. At our own heads.

[RedToothBrush]

Its time for the suicide. The note will say simply, "The EU made us do it".

David Davies, says that despite May’s assertion that no deal is better than a bad deal for the UK, that actually we don’t know this as he hasn’t got round to quantifying the impact of no deal.

He still has no answers for anything apart from “I dunno” and “I’ll do it later”. I can’t wait for when the dog ate my homework excuse.

After 9 months. That’s how far we’ve got. Brexit negotiation skills will have 18 months (not 2 years as it’ll need to be ratified). We are still hiring people for the Brexit department. What about all these EU agencies that the UK will have to replicate and hire and train up in 2 years time?

I’m still waiting for Davies to tell me what all these potential benefits he keeps going on about are too. Benefits for who exactly? Ah yes we know the answer to this one too, even if its not being said. Its political elites and elites with lots of money who can consolidate power and enslave the population through debt and desperation. Goodie. Just what I’ve always wanted. As long as I can wave my Union Jack. Oh. Shit. Bugger.

Nicola Sturgeon, has been doing a good job of showing Brexiteers exactly what they look like to Remainers by holding up the mirror of irony to the Vampires of the 19th Century State. The sight of them tripping over themselves saying its irrational to hold a ‘blind vote’ and that the economic argument is flawed is hilarious. If you are not British.

Hammond has been forced to u-turn on NIC budget announcement as it was not in the spirit of the manifesto. What happened to the manifesto pledge to the protect interests in the Single Market. Lets be honest, the New Tory Manifesto read simply: “We’ll wing it and see what we can get away with”. I wonder how many people would vote for that.

Its Brexit at all costs. No matter what. We must keep the foreigners out. Even though Davis hasn’t done an assessment on the financial impact of migration. Just think about that for a second. Actually don’t because you might actually want to shoot yourself in the head.

At best the government are still relying on Game Theory as a basis for their negotiations and the EU are already going, “Er we don’t think so”.

Perhaps this is the intention of May’s tour to build consensus. She’s handing out guns and bullets to anyone who displays rational thought, to blow their own brains out.

May’s weakness is her manner and her chip on her shoulder for the law. Her own party are not immune to it. She seems to think trade deals are not done based on goodwill. May’s weakness is Britain’s folly.

Pass the blindfolds round, and get on your knees and await our own execution by our own hands.

Bang.

RIP The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. I will remember you with nostalgic fondness but equally with bitterness and shame. Our finest hours are long since passed (and were tainted with the excesses of exploitation anyway) and we must accept this as part of the process of ‘accepting Brexit’.

Now its time for the empty hand to start being shown and the blame game to begin in earnest. The politics of hate have only just begun and the divorce has not started yet. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar are the kids we might not get custody of.

We’ll be blacking up again, running around groping women like Benny Hill and pushing people back into the closet as we hit the off switch before you know it. As well as having nice shiny new ID cards we’ll have to pay for the privilege of owning and carrying at all times, to prove we aren’t nasty illegal immigrants or those equally nasty legal ones clogging up our NHS (by working for it).

Don’t worry though. Uncle Donny will save us. If he doesn’t die suddenly after eating a bowl of Russia soup or have a fatal heart attack after accidentally falling out of a tenth story window.

"We seem to be living through a cross between failed state coup, civil war and the clearances. The government seems to have declared war on the country."

Yes that is what it feels like. We've found out what happens when there is no opposition in parliament.

The Times: An election is in the air: May needs a mandate

"Workers and volunteers say it is “no secret” they are being readied to fight a general election as early as this spring.

Money is being spent on a scale far beyond what would be usual ahead of council elections in May.
Agents and regional press officers are being put in place.
Candidates and canvassers are being ordered to make sure their credentials are in order."

"If there is an election now it will not be because she had a cunning plan to go early all along"

"In the words of one well-connected activist, a general election now “looks inevitable” because
the events of the past few days show the prime minister cannot get on with her work.

She cannot rule because her opponents refuse to accept she has a mandate to do so — whether they are in the Scottish parliament or on the Conservative back benches in Westminster.

If she is to do what she wants on everything from Brexit to school reform, it is now clear she will have to acquire her own mandate by winning her own majority."

"The government did not make a U-turn on increased national insurance contributions (NICs) for the self-employed because ministers believed it was the right thing to do.
They still insist the tax base will erode unacceptably unless similar changes are made.
The U-turn occurred because the chief whip, Gavin Williamson, had the duty to inform the prime minister and the chancellor that his chaps wouldn’t have it."

"May’s hard line on Brexit has been forced by her fear of another majority-threatening group of Conservative MPs.
As fast as the Brexit secretary, David Davis, tries to open up space for the coming negotiations, it is closed by challenges from his own side.

The prime minister is attempting to fabricate her own mandate from “a fundamental truth:
that the referendum last summer was not just a vote to leave the EU but an instruction to change the way our whole country works”.

"Nicola Sturgeon has hoisted “indyref2” onto the agenda and established that the EU referendum amounts to “material change” that justifies a second go."

"A quick and comprehensive election victory, which the polls suggest is within May’s grasp, would silence such insolence.
It would also have many collateral benefits.

Commitments not to increase national insurance could be written out.
A warning shot of democratic legitimacy would pass over the Lords."

"The toxin would be drawn from police investigations into electoral fraud because the threat of high-profile reruns in painful by-elections would be rendered redundant.

The Electoral Commission would not have time to tighten rules that favour the richer and more technologically savvy Conservatives,

but an outwardly chastened party would have an excuse for just the type of short, low-key campaign that would suit the prime minister.

If May announces her intention to go to the country to confirm her Brexit strategy at the same time as she triggers article 50 at the end of this month, she could just manage to coincide the general election with the local elections on May 4"

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/an-election-is-in-the-air-may-needs-a-mandate-fdxvq6rjz

Rather good article in the Grauniad on "Empire 2.0"

My favourite light-hearted quote:
"This newfound focus on the Commonwealth feels uncomfortably akin to recent divorcees looking up their former partners on Facebook; and being shocked to discover that they have got married, had kids and moved on."

My favourite reality check:
"Yet the most jagged rock upon which the Empire 2.0 fantasy flounders is history itself. Britain in the 19th century was two things simultaneously; the hub of the largest empire on earth and the greatest manufacturing and trading nation the world had ever seen. Yet the formal empire and the trading empire were not the same thing. While the empire, especially India, undoubtedly helped make Britain rich, even at the height of our imperial power we traded more with Europe and the United States than with the colonies. It was to the booming cities of America, and to the slave-driven cotton economy of the deep south, that British capital surged in the 19th century. And while much of Africa was painted imperial red on the maps that famously hung on every classroom wall, Britain did more trade with tiny Denmark than with Nigeria, one of her biggest west African colonies.

The empire, even at its height, never came close to absorbing the majority of our exports or providing the bulk of our imports, and neither will the Commonwealth, no matter how good a trade deal we win. Empire 2.0 is a fanciful vision of the future based on a distorted misremembering of the past. It’s a delusion and, like all delusions, has the potential to lure us into a false sense of security and lead us to make bad decisions."

I would have thought that an election is in the air not because May needs a mandate, but because she is certain to win right now, whereas in 12 months or so things will be looking a lot more precarious.

Timing is all.

"According to Ofsted, 'fundamental British values' are: democracy
the rule of law; individual liberty; mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith."
Ah now you see, this I have no issue with at all.
I do have an issue with MP Pig giving this lecture talk as he's made it clear in his campaigning that he doesn't agree with these values.
Thanks for this, I shall use it to give my objections.

If May announces her intention to go to the country to confirm her Brexit strategy at the same time as she triggers article 50 at the end of this month, she could just manage to coincide the general election with the local elections on May 4"

I believe she can't do that - she either has to lost a vote of Confidence, or she would have to pass legislation to get round the Fixed Term Parliament Act. With a grammar school rebellion on the cards, the first is possible, but as far as I am aware, it's not yet got to the stage of being a Bill. The second, legislation to get round Fixed terms would appear extremely cynical. Would it get passed? Possibly in the current times.

Yes, barring a bolt from the blue, May will get a large majority - she needs it

I've thought ever since May took over as PM that she needs a mandate from a GE, maybe not constitutionally but certainly politically

Although Callaghan, Major, Brown also became PM without a GE, they weren't trying to carry out such a fundamental change to the country, which may have the most significant effects since the welfare state was created, about 70 years ago

Fixed term parliament act was a fix to get through their distrust of Lib Dems in coalition. The only ones May distrusts now is the whole country.

Political analysts have long said said that the FTPA is not much of a roadblock if May decides on a GE.

The Times article:

"Then or later, the Fixed Term Parliament Act is not much of an obstacle.

The easiest way to overrule it would be a two-thirds majority vote in the Commons.

Conservative MPs want an early election because they think they would do well and seats would not be cut down by new boundaries.

Jeremy Corbyn is on record as saying: “If there is a vote to dissolve parliament then obviously we will vote with it.” < and he's daft enough to do that >

Even if he backtracks, the majority of Labour MPs still see painful election chemotherapy as the quickest and surest way to purge their party of the Corbyn cancer."

woman

Callaghan, Major, Brown also became PM without a GE,

You could also mention Douglas-Home.
Making 3 who didn't manage to win a GE (if memory serves correctly). Major just squeaked through, and I recall there were mutterings at the time about postal votes being fiddled, but nothing came of it. Major then got a drubbing at the next election.

So if May went to the country now, she might win - but she might well come the most almighty cropper afterwards.

Good idea hashi.

The trouble with British Values is not the listed contents, but that once they are labelled as specifically British, they inevitable carry the implication that the non-British are somehow less committed to those values. The other problem of course is that the government that has ordered everyone to embed these is showing itself to be thoroughly deficient in its own application of them.

I have just successfully naturalised (EU citizen and permanent resident in the UK).

I am so pleased that I will be allowed to vote in the next GE. Seeing how the Tories and Labour are treating EU citizens in the context of Brexit I know I will vote for Lib Dems for the rest of my life. I hope many more EU citizens who live here permanently will naturalise over the next few months and vote for a better future for all people living in Britain. 2-3 million new voters could shift the political landscape.

Brown and Callaghan would probaly have won if they had had the guts to call a GE before their popularity plummeted.

A PM needs their own mandate before things go pear-shaoed, which always happens.

May can win comfortably now, but she has a huge number of problems piling up in the near future.
She needs the political power of her own mandate, plus the extra couple of years in power that a 2017 GE win would give her.

At the very least, it would avoid a string of embarassing byelections if several 2015 results are overturned - as a oast Tory chair, she should now know much of the inside story on what Tory Central Offcie actually did

Congratulations and welcome (with apologies for the current state), Depeche

DepecheToad

Going back to the snit with Nicky Morgan, I think it started with the leather trouser gate. May is thin skinned, and holds grudges, a bit like 'yellow hair'. We must act on our enemy's weakness.
If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him. Sun Tzu

thank you for the warm welcome BigCHoc and Woman. No apologies needed, all countries have their ups and downs. I caught myself recently referring to the UK as "our country" as in "how badly will our country be affected by Brexit?" when talking to a friend. It's odd this citizenship business, a little like getting married to your long term partner. It's the same but different. I feel lucky that I am no longer one of the 3 million + 'bargaining chips' but worried about fellow EU citizens who haven't yet sorted their citizenship out and whose lives and futures will be subject to incompetet negotiations by people without scruples and or morals (you TM!).

I'll be at the March next week.

John Major here:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/19/john-major-attacks-ultra-brexiteers-undemocratic-un-british-theresa-may-eu-brexit?CMP=sharebtnn_tw

"“It is time for the minority of ‘ultra-Brexiteers’ – those who believe in a complete break from Europe – to stop shouting down anyone with an opposing view. It is not only unattractive but profoundly undemocratic and totally un-British,” he wrote."

May is not a public speaker. Major scored a coup with his soap box. Even DC went out to weird auditoriums with his sleeves rolled up and a hot face.

She's never campaigned, for high office, I wouldn't be surprised if she's being protected from campaigning. Her speech writers are shit: with steals from Sam Cooke and the 'precious precious' stuff.

Still looking forward to her debating with NS.

She won't debate with NS.

Funny old world these days. John Major writing for the Guardian. And against his own party.
Another thing to add to the long list of events that, a year ago, would not have been possible or predictable.
I'm suffering from 'crazy-news fatigue'.

I, and many people I know, will be on the March next week. We need to show that we haven't gone away.

www.uniteforeurope.org/

Just caught Tony Blair on Andrew Marr. Making complete sense. I never even liked Blair
I'm with you hester this crazy news crap has fried my brains.

woman thanks again for the pointer to Ofsted things, found a few examples where MP Pig voted against it and the values of his clubs that are anti it, so letter has been written ready to drop into school tomorrow.

Angela Merkel espouses documented British values more authentically than Theresa May. Fact